1942 - Food And Drink

Food And Drink

British and U.S. families change their eating habits as domestic servants leave to take jobs in war plants, shipyards, hospitals, and the like; many housewives take such jobs themselves, and sales of convenience foods increase as women have less time to spend in the kitchen.

A General Maximum Price Regulation Act voted by Congress April 28 freezes 60 percent of U.S. food items at store-by-store March price levels. Food prices have shot up by 53 percent since Pearl Harbor: apples sell at 10¢ each, a head of lettuce 28¢, a watermelon $2.50, oranges $1/doz.

U.S. troops carry K rations packed by Chicago's Wrigley Co. Named for University of Minnesota nutritionist Ancel Keys, 38, they contain "defense" biscuits and compressed Graham biscuits, canned meat or substitute, three tablets of sugar, four cigarettes, and a stick of chewing gum in each combat ration. The breakfast ration includes also a fruit bar and soluble coffee, the dinner ration flavored and plain dextrose tablets and a packet of lemon-juice powder, the supper ration bouillon powder and a bar of concentrated chocolate called "Ration D." Religious groups have helped to fund a study conducted by Keys at the university's Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene; it is intended to help the Allies cope with concentration-camp survivors, refugees, and prisoner-of-war camp survivors who have lived under circumstances bordering on starvation; Keys has used volunteer conscientious objectors, and they have subsisted on carefully measured but meager rations of dark bread, macaroni, potatoes, rutabaga, and turnips—the kinds of foods that refugees might scavenge (see nutrition, 1953).

Instant Maxwell House coffee has its beginnings in the soluble coffee for K rations developed for the armed forces by General Foods (see Nescafé, 1938).

The Chemex coffeemaker introduced by the New York-based Chemex Corp. is a simple, functional drip brewer designed by German chemist and artist Peter Schlumbohm, 46 (see Silex, 1915); made of an hourglass-shaped piece of Pyrex, it has a wood-and-leather handgrip at its middle but is hard to clean. The Melitta cone-drip system invented in 1908 will not be introduced in America until 1963; most Americans will continue meanwhile to drink inferior percolator coffee.

The U.S. Army announces that it will offer a $750,000 contract to anyone able to supply it in quantity with a cheap, soluble orange juice powder (see 1945; Minute Maid, 1947).

U.S. soft drink companies are allowed enough sugar to meet quotas of 50 to 80 percent of the production attained in the base year 1941 but with no limit on sales to the armed forces.

Kellogg's Raisin Bran, introduced by Kellogg Co., is 10.6 percent sugar (see 1928; Sugar Frosted Flakes, 1952).

Dannon Yogurt is introduced at New York by Swiss-born Spanish emigré Joe Metzger, who goes into business with Isaac Carasso. Metzger employs his son Juan, 23, at the company's Bronx factory, which initially turns out 200 eight-ounce jars per day for sale at 11¢ each, mostly to the ethnic local yogurt market, but Dannon will relocate to Long Island City next year and increase production.

Idaho potato processor John Richard "Jack" Simplot, 33, wins a government contract to supply dehydrated potatoes to the armed forces. Simplot dropped out of school at age 14, sorted potatoes, rented 40 acres of land near Declo, raised hogs to supplement the income he derived from growing potatoes, plowed back his profits, and soon became the nation's largest shipper of fresh potatoes. A millionaire by age 30, he built a dehydrator last year and by 1945 will have supplied about 33 million pounds of dehydrated potatoes to the military (see frozen french fries, 1953).

Dairy companies reduce milk deliveries to alternate days by government order to conserve rubber, gasoline, trucks, and manpower; in some cities, horse-drawn milk wagons reappear.